


an angel? at my local pool? it's more likely than you'd think

by theoreticlove



Series: none quite so fair as he [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Swim Team, Lifeguard!Glorfindel, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swimmer! Ecthelion, Title Subject to Change, irregular updates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoreticlove/pseuds/theoreticlove
Summary: ecthelion is fairly certain that the lifeguard looking down at him is an angel. (glorfindel, simply, is a stuttering mess.) (they are both, in fact, stuttering messes, but it works, somehow.)





	an angel? at my local pool? it's more likely than you'd think

**Author's Note:**

> please forgive me for my inconsistent portrayal of ecthelion, thank you, enjoy
> 
> another note: i realised i was never going to finish this fic so i’ve marked it as finished. but! there’s actually a second part to this series, where they’re officially together.

The lifeguard sitting in the chair at the corner of the shallow end was staring at Ecthelion. Or so he thought, but considering every time he looked over the guard was staring at him, he was pretty sure he was correct. Maybe he should wave, but he didn’t want to ruin it, the way the guard was looking at him up and down. He rather liked it. Especially considering that he himself found the new lifeguard kind of attractive, and was staring at him as well. Long, thick blond hair cascaded down his shoulders, shining in the rays of the morning sun through the window. The height of the guard chair made him think of Rapunzel, and for some reason Ecthelion wanted to be the prince, crying, _Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!_

Oh, was Ecthelion glad that people were generally inclined to stare at him while he was wearing naught but very tight swimsuit. It was his muscles, of course, broad shoulders and hard abs from spending the majority of his time training like his life depended on it. And if the muscles got the pretty lifeguard to stare at him, well, that was a perfectly good thing in Ecthelion’s opinion. He liked the thought of the lifeguard thinking he was pretty. For some reason, it made his heart beat just a little bit faster, as if he was out of breath. He liked that feeling, too.

“Dude, quit staring at the lifeguard.” Ecthelion was jolted back to reality by Tuor’s words and accompanying nudge, snapping his head forwards to listen to what his coach, Turgon, was telling the team. Something about a competition coming up soon, but Ecthelion had been lost in thought for long enough that he couldn’t understand the remainder of Turgon’s speech anyways. He glanced back at the lifeguard, who had also turned away, but Ecthelion could just see his shyness as he turned his face away. 

“Mister Fontaine, if I have to call your name to get your attention one more time-” Turgon started, ending his sentence when Ecthelion turned and smiled sheepishly at him, apologising even if he didn’t really mean it. Turgon simply rolled his eyes at him and began telling him about the expectations for his performance at the upcoming competition. Ecthelion paid attention to every word, knowing that even though he was Turgon’s favourite swimmer (rather, second favourite- his daughter Idril was on the team, after all) (although she was only fifteen, so did she really count?), his patience would wear out rather quickly. 

“Now, I expect to see you all here Monday morning, starting classes or no. We have a lot of training to do before we swim at U of Doriath, and just because you have an 8am class that doesn’t mean you can skip. Practice ends at 7:30. You’ll make it to class on time. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.” Turgon finished, effectively dismissing his swimmers. They began to pick up their equipment, shoving paddles and boards and pull buoys into their bags without a second thought. After Saturday morning’s practice ended, the middle-aged swimmers, the masters, took over the pool, which meant they didn’t need to take the lane ropes they had installed earlier out of the pool. They only needed to dismantle the flags, one set at each end of the pool. 

The shallow end flags were right next to the guard’s chair, and Tuor nudged him towards the opposite end of where Ecthelion was standing, inviting him to go take them down and talk to the lifeguard. 

“What makes you think I want to talk to him?” Ecthelion asked Tuor, raising an eyebrow. Idril rolled her eyes at him. 

“Probably the fact that you two have been staring at each other from across the pool for the past two hours,” she said, shaking her head at him. Ecthelion hadn’t realised he’d been so unsubtle. He thought he had been, but apparently not. 

“Go do the flags, Thel. Then you can convince us that you are above such non-aquatic things as a crush. Go!” She shooed him off, and he complied, raising his hands in mock surrender and listening to his teammates laugh at him as he walked over to the shallow end. 

It wasn’t that he was above having a crush. He just never really got them, and his teammates had taken that for ‘oh, Ecthelion is too busy swimming to be persuaded by cute boys’. He could definitely be persuaded by cute boys. He just didn’t think that a lot of boys were cute. This one, though, definitely was, and Ecthelion felt butterflies in his stomach at the prospect of being so near him. _This is stupid,_ he thought, _you’ve only known he existed for two hours_. Why was he so enraptured? Oh well. It didn’t matter. He had a job do to, so he went to do it.

When he reached the shallow end, he yanked the pole that was keeping the flags up out of its slot in the floor. Or rather, he tried. It seemed stuck somehow, and he looked up at the way the flags were attached to it. The clasp, naturally, was bent at an awkward angle, making the flags strung so tensely that he could not possibly get the pole out with them still attached. 

“Shit,” Ecthelion mumbled under his breath. He looked up at the lifeguard, realising he’d have to ask him for help. The height of the guard chair made it easy for him to simply reach over, unhook the clasp and make Ecthelion’s life a hundred times easier. But that, of course, would mean talking to him. _Suck it up,_ he told himself. It wasn’t as if the boy was that attractive. There was no reason for him to be feeling like this, so he shoved his emotions down.

“Hey,” Ecthelion said, looking up at the lifeguard and smiling at him. The golden-haired boy turned to look at him, and Ecthelion lost the fight with his blush almost immediately afterwards.

He was stunning, surpassing in looks every boy that Ecthelion had ever deemed ‘cute’, which was a word that Ecthelion found terribly inaccurate now that he was close up with this boy that could only be called beautiful, or stunning or magnificent. Ecthelion wanted to kiss him, soft lips almost taunting him to do so. His dark skin glowed in the mid-morning sun, making him look ethereal, an angel sent from above just to make Ecthelion’s heart stop.

“Hi,” the boy replied, voice deep and rich and not a boy’s voice, but a man’s. He had to be around Ecthelion’s own age, eighteen or nineteen or recently twenty like Galdor. The man smiled back at him in turn, smiling awkwardly, which absolutely made him look even more divine. Ecthelion felt his mouth go dry. He was a goner. Why was he even here again? Surely he must have had a purpose other than speaking to an angel, but for the life of him he could not recall what it was. 

Ah, yes. The flags. Right, right. He had a set task that he had to get done. Keep your cool, Ecthelion.

“Um, uh, can you help me with this?” He gestured towards the flags. “I can’t, uh, get the clasp.”

“Yeah, uh, yeah. Sure thing,” he said, reaching to unhook the clasp and passing it down to Ecthelion, who took it. 

“Thanks. What’s your name?” Ecthelion blurted, holding the flags in place even though he should be making his was to the other side of the pool to dismantle them. “I mean, I just, I haven’t seen you around here before.” 

“Oh, um, my name’s Glorfindel. Glorfindel Bellefleur. And it’s, uh, my first day working here. You?” Glorfindel said. _Golden-haired_. It was pretty, and very true, judging by his mass of golden hair.

“Glorfindel,” Ecthelion said, testing the name out. It was Sindarin, he knew, but Glorfindel didn’t look Sindarin. It didn’t matter, though, most of the people in Gondolin had sindarised their names after Beleriand’s president, Elu Thingol (who had since been assassinated, thank the Valar), had outlawed Valinorian tongues. Ecthelion’s own name was actually Ehtelë. “It, uh, it suits you. I’m Ecthelion Fontaine.”

“Thank you,” Glorfindel said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s, er, nice to meet you, Ecthelion.”

“It’s nice to meet you too, Glorfindel.” Nice wasn’t the right word. It was phenomenal, incredible, the most wonderful thing to have met Glorfindel. “I, uh, hope to see you around more often?” It came out like a question, Ecthelion asking Glorfindel if he’d see him at the pool again.

“Yeah! Yeah, I, uh, work most days but Thursdays, so, um, if you swim during the other weekdays chances are you’ll, uh, see me.” 

“I, er, I look forward to it.” Ecthelion replied, and started taking down the flags, almost itching to not be so painfully awkward anymore. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed his conversation. He had. But he resolved to next time not be a stuttering, blushing mess. By the Valar, he had acted like such a disaster it was embarrassing.

He walked into the change room with his cheeks still burning, and Tuor promptly burst into laughter. He had been so lost in thinking about Glorfindel, he was still holding the flags.

Ecthelion sighed. He had a terrible, terrible crush.

**Author's Note:**

> i love two (2) disaster gays
> 
> add me on tumblr to chat about elves @ ectheliions


End file.
